


Too Much

by aravenwood



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Illya, Illya Whump, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Whump Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 14:05:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14895974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood
Summary: Written for the prompt "surviving the aftermath of a difficult fight while alone/trapped".On the run from enemies who want him dead, Illya struggles to get past his injuries.





	Too Much

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So this is a new writing fandom for me. I've read a lot of fics, mostly Illya whump, but never written anything. This fic was written as part of the whump fic exchange for whumpsie-daisy over on Tumblr. 
> 
> I really hope you like it and it's what you were looking for!

Illya couldn’t believe that he was running away. He never ran away from a fight – well, almost never – but he wasn’t stupid enough to hang around in the condition he was in, wasn’t naïve enough to believe that he could win. Maybe if he was healthier, maybe if they hadn’t caught him off-guard, then he wouldn’t have to run.

But he knew about the blood trail he was leaving behind, and because of that there was no way he could outrun the agents on his tail. They would catch up eventually, when he stopped to drink or breathe or tend to his wounds. With that blood trail, he was never going to lose them.

As he was once more reminded of this, he glanced over his shoulder to find out how close the men chasing him were. He couldn’t see them at least, and even their voices were a little quieter for now. Adrenaline had given him a temporary advantage, but that was fading as pain and blood loss began to set in. He could at least deal with the blood loss. Slowing to a jog, he fumbled with the buttons of his once-white-now-red shirt, struggling as the tremors which came with hypovolemic shock began to set in. He quickly gave up and instead tore his shirt apart, several buttons tearing in the process. This wasn’t the first shirt he had lost in his line of work, and it certainly wouldn’t be his last.

He shrugged out of the shirt, letting out a choked gasp as his fingers brushed the gunshot wound to his left shoulder. It was a through-and-through at least, which would make things easier when he managed to get back home but a lot more difficult right now with no one around to help. Sure he’d dealt with injuries like this out in the field – most agents did on most of their missions – but that never made the matter any less complicated. As such, as he tore one sleeve from his shirt and set about winding it around his bloody shoulder, his breaths were shuddering and his jaw tight. His jog had slowed to a stroll as he focused on making sure both the entry and exit wounds were covered as he knotted the sleeve into place. He tucked the rest of the shirt into the waistband of his trousers and broke once more into a sprint. A quick glance back told him that he’d been able to stop the blood trail. Thank god for small mercies. There was no way he could keep this up. He had to get his pursuers off his trail, that was his first order of business.

Once more he slowed to a jog, examining his surroundings. Trees. Trees. More trees. Right, he could deal with this. He headed towards one which had lower branches than some of the others, adjusted the makeshift bandage and stretched up to grab onto the branch right above his head. His wounds stretched at the gesture, forcing him to lower his arms for a second just to get a handle on the pain. He could feel blood starting to seep from some of the other wounds on his back, the ones caused by a swinging whip he’d been unfortunate enough to get in the way of. In his defence, he’d never known anyone to use a whip in a fight – the wielder was dead, so he would probably never find another, thank god.

After a few deep breaths, he was once more ready. He clung to the branch with both hands and pulled himself up until he could wrap his legs around it. Edged towards the trunk and rose to his knees, then his feet and reached for the next branch. His shoulder was screaming as he hung most of his weight from it, prompting him to rush every single pull-up. Sweat clung to his brow, blood to his back, and him to the tree. He didn’t mind heights, but he did mind the excruciating pain every stretch brought. He didn’t dare look down for fear of discovering that he was only a few metres off the ground, and he only looked up to find the next branch. Climbing the tree became a rhythm; stretch, grab, pull, stretch, grab, pull.

Then suddenly there were voices and he froze mid-stretch. As he turned to face the direction he’d come from, he saw several beams of light heading his way. He lowered himself into a seating position as quickly as he was able, breathing through his nose and just trying to keep quiet. His fingers ghosted over the bandage – it was wet with yet more blood. As if his body had been reminded of the injuries, his head began to spin. He clung to the branch and breathed steadily through his nose, not caring to open his eyes until the nausea and general lightheadedness had passed. As soon as he was able, he shifted until he had his back pressed against the tree trunk – the whip marks protested furiously at the rough bark rubbing against them – and let his head fall back against it. It came into contact with a hollow thump and a quick flash of pain which came as a welcome distraction to every other agony.

As his pursuers closed in, he held himself very still and refused to even breathe. They ran past one by one, torches flashing as the men searched the surrounding area. No one looked up, no one even paused to further examine the area – they just kept running.

The last torch disappeared and Illya finally allowed himself to breathe.

He spent several minutes doing nothing but breathing and pressing on the exit wound at the front of his shoulder. The pain was no less intense and the bleeding seemed to have grown heavier, so much so that it wasn’t long until his palms were slick and scarlet. He swore quietly in Russian and tried to clean them on his trousers, but it did very little to help. Even the wounds on his back had reopened from their mistreatment, meaning that he would have to try and wrap them too before he set off again. The mere thought had his heart racing that little bit faster in preparation for what would be even more pain.

“Right,” he whispered and pulled the remains of the shirt from his waistband. He tore the other sleeve away, then hung it over the branch in front of him. Breathing steadily to brace himself, he wrapped the rest of it around his chest, covering as many of the welts as he was able. The sleeve was tied on top of it in an attempt to hold the makeshift bandage in place. By the time he was finished, his hands were well and truly soaked in his own blood and he was shaking with pain, exhaustion and the effects of blood loss. He let out a long, shuddering breath and let his head fall once more against the trunk. Eyes slipping closed as he allowed himself to rest, it wasn’t long before he found himself starting to doze.

No! He couldn’t sleep, not yet. If the men chasing him came back and found him here, there was no way he would survive. No way. No, he had to get moving while he was still conscious and able and alive. Then he could sleep. But only then.

Carefully he began to descend the tree once more. It was slow going, his arms stiff and tired, his body sore and tight and bloody. He wished he’d been able to take down all of the men after him, wished that the effects of repeated blows hadn’t begun to take their toll – he wouldn’t have had to climb anything if he wasn’t fleeing but simply leaving. Even his radio would have been useful to have, but that had been broken in the fight. He was well and truly alone.

He was halfway to the forest floor when his hand suddenly slipped, the blood still slick on his fingers. There was no time to grab another branch before he was falling. Time seemed to slow down as he tumbled towards the ground, hitting several branches on the way down.

He hit the ground with a thump and a snap. Pain lanced through his left leg like fire and he was barely able to hold back a scream at what was clearly a broken bone. He curled in on himself, one hand clutching his leg while the other clutched at some of the loose leaves near his head. He was shaking and sweating at the same time, pain all over his body more than a little overwhelming. All he could do was lie there and hold his breath just so he wouldn’t scream, even as a voice in his mind scolded him for being weak. If it was just his leg, or just the gunshot wound, or just the welts on his back then he would be fine, he could just force himself to continue. But it was everything at once, every injury just as agonising as the last, trapping him on the ground in a world of pain. It was too much. Too much.

Too much...

\-----------

Napoleon didn’t know whether he should be more or less afraid to come to the end of the blood trail. It was Illya’s, it had to be from the way it was leading away from the facility instead of towards it the way it would if it was an injured guard, the drops of blood becoming fewer and farther between but never stopping until suddenly they did. He crouched next to the final few drops and touched his fingertips to them. They had long since dried into the mud and leaves, barely noticeable now unless someone had followed every previous drop.

Maybe Illya had stopped bleeding, maybe he’d been able to deal with his wounds. Or maybe he’d been caught. Napoleon sighed, hoping for both of their sakes that it was the former. If Illya had been caught then so had the package, and there was no way it wouldn’t be destroyed the moment it fell back into enemy hands. Sure there would be other ways to get the information, but this was supposed to have been the easy route.

He remembered hearing gunshots before, and thinking about this now prompted him to straighten up and take off in a jog in the direction Illya had presumably gone in. “Illya?” he called, careful not to raise his voice too much for fear of being heard. He’d taken down several guards already, but he couldn’t be sure that there weren’t more out looking for him and Illya – the sheer number of guards he’d taken out told him about the fight Illya had put up before being forced to run. He couldn’t help it as pride washed over him, pride for the strength of his partner.

For several more minutes all he did was walk, search and occasionally call out for his partner. He heard nothing in return until suddenly he did. A groan, a murmur that could easily be his name. Illya! He was close.

By the time he was able to locate his partner – a surprisingly long time considering how close Illya had to be to be heard – it seemed that Illya was well on the way to passing out. He was slumped awkwardly against a tree, neck twisted at an angle that told Napoleon he hadn’t been able to move to get more comfortable. His shirt was no longer a shirt but rather a series of bloody bandages dyed a dirty brown with mud and dried blood. One on his shoulder, one around his chest, blood seeping from the edges of both. And his leg…it stuck out at a strange, unnatural angle as his hands clutched loosely at the fabric of his trouser leg. He was pale and sweaty, eyes barely able to focus on Napoleon. Every blink took longer than the last, a sure sign of just how bad he was feeling – Illya wasn’t one to let a few minor injuries put him down.

None of these were minor.

Taking a deep breath to recover from the initial shock of finding his partner in such a state, Napoleon dropped to one knee at Illya’s head and touched his uninjured shoulder. Illya’s first reaction was to snarl out a threat in Russian, his hand fumbling to find a gun that wasn’t there. Upon realising this he instead began to growl, a low animalistic sound that had Napoleon shuffling back half a step.

“What did you say before? ‘I’ll be in and out without anyone knowing I’m there’. How did that turn out for you?” he asked with a forced smirk.

Illya’s eyes cleared a little at the comment. His head shifted as he tried and failed to lift it, so Napoleon moved a little so that he was more easily in the other man’s line of sight. “There were twenty of them. All armed. Got in a lucky hit,” Illya said in the most solemn voice he could muster. His lips quirked as he tried and failed to hold back a smile of his own – they’d both heard agents with comments like that, hell they’d both used them enough that neither man could take the other seriously.

That Illya was at least able to make that weak joke had Napoleon’s smirk becoming more genuine for a few moments until his eyes drifted once more to the numerous injuries. “Give me a rundown,” he ordered.

“Shot in the shoulder, in and out. Whip marks on my back. Some bruises. And I…I broke my leg.” His face flushed as if he was embarrassed. What was he hiding? With the way he was lying and the wound which didn’t match up the way the others did…

“You fell out of a tree?” Napoleon asked incredulously. Illya, who was by far the toughest man he’d ever worked with, who’d run for almost three miles with a gunshot wound and blood oozing from various welts, had fallen out of a tree. He snorted out a laugh. “Wow, you must really be slipping.”

“Shut up.”

“No really, I’m impressed. Must’ve been a powerful tree. What did it do, grow arms and throw you? They saw it down with you in it?”

“Solo…”

“I’m glad we know your kryptonite, we can adjust. We’ll keep you in open areas from now on, not a tree in sight.”

“Solo!”

Napoleon raised his hands defensively as Illya’s voice took on a lower, dangerous tone. “Alright, alright. Come on, let’s get you out of here. Give me your hand -.” He stopped as he suddenly remembered why they were here in the first place. “I have to ask. Did you get it?”

A few seconds passed in which Illya frowned at nothing. He jolted suddenly and one hand shot to his pocket, fumbling through it while his wide eyes stared at Napoleon. Oh god, he’d dropped it, hadn’t he? Of course he had, nothing could ever go smoothly – not that this one had been smooth in the slightest – and they had to go to plan B to get the information they needed -.

“Yes.” Illya looked visibly relieved as he pulled the package from his pocket and handed it over. His eyes slid closed and his breathing slowed as exhaustion and pain took hold once more.

“Hey, not yet. Think I’m going to carry you all the way to the extraction point?” Napoleon called, nudging Illya with his knee until the other man stirred and glared up at him.

“Right.” Illya pushed himself slowly upright, grimacing as every injury screamed at him to stay still and never move again. But he kept going, even as he started to shake and blood started to leak from the sides of the bandage on his shoulder.

Napoleon winced in sympathy and placed a hand on the other shoulder, pushing Illya back down. “Ok, change of plan. We’re pretty close to the road. They’ll probably be able to find us by car.” He kept one hand on Illya, stopping him from trying to move, and reached for his radio with the other. As he lifted it to his mouth, he couldn’t help but wish that sometimes missions could go just a little more smoothly. Just once.

Was that too much to ask?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
